Kerry will take FEC funds, repay his mortgage

Boston Globe reports: John F. Kerry is poised to take federal campaign money once he is nominated for the presidency next week, according to top campaign finance advisers, a move that will allow him to disburse millions of dollars in leftover campaign cash to Democratic Party operations, effectively augmenting the $75 million he will receive in federal funds.

Aides expect the Kerry campaign committee to end up with enough money to make sizable transfers to the Democratic National Committee, state Democratic committees, and possibly the committees working to elect a Democratic Congress. The aim would be to have the committees, especially those in battleground states, air television ads on Kerry's behalf this fall, and finance get-out-the-vote operations on Election Day.

Such efforts at the national and state levels will help mitigate the spending advantage that President Bush has by virtue of his later nomination date. Candidates accepting federal financing must stop using their campaign's privately raised funds once they have accepted the nomination. Because Kerry's nomination will come on July 29 -- five weeks before President Bush's -- the Massachusetts senator's $75 million must cover 13 weeks, while Bush's $75 million will cover just eight weeks.